1869
Year 1869 (MDCCCLXIX) is a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Wednesday of the 12-day slower Julian calendar). Events of 1869 January - March * January 1 - Sigma Nu, First Anti-Hazing Honor/Social Fraternity, is founded. * January 20 - Elizabeth Cady Stanton is the first woman to testify before the United States Congress. * February 20 - Ranavalona II, Merina Queen of Madagascar is baptized. * March 1 - North German Confederation issues 10gr and 30gr value stamps, printed on goldbeater's skin * March 4 - Ulysses S. Grant succeeds Andrew Johnson as President of the United States of America. * March 6 - Mendeleev makes a formal presentation to the Russian Chemical Society. April - June * April 6 - The American Museum of Natural History is founded in New York. * May - Naval Battle of Hakodate in Japan. * May 6 - Purdue University founded in West Lafayette. * May 10 - Transcontinental Railroad completed at Promontory, Utah. * May 15 - Woman's suffrage: In New York, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton form the National Woman's Suffrage Association. * May 26 - Boston University is chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. * May 29 - British parliament passes the Capital Punishment within Prisons Bill, thus ending public hanging. * June 1 - The Cincinnati Red Stockings open the baseball season as the first all professional (paid, no amateurs) team. * June 2 - Sherwood College founded in Nainital. * June 15 - John Wesley Hyatt patents the first plastic, Celluloid, in Albany, New York. * June 18 - First Estonian song festival takes place in Tartu. July - September * July 4 - University of Bucharest is founded. * August 4'-'August 12 - Joshua A. Norton abolished both the Democratic and Republican parties. * August 9 - August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht founded the Social Democratic Workers' Party of Germany (SDAP). * August 31 - Mary Ward is killed in a car accident, possibly the first person ever to suffer this fate. * September 5 - The foundation stone is laid for Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria (southern Germany). * September 11 - Work completed on the Wallace Monument. * September 24- The Fisk-Gould Scandal also known as Black Friday erupted and a financial panic in the United States caused by two speculators' efforts to corner the gold market. October - December * October 16 - England's first residential college for women, Girton College, is founded. * November 4 - The first issue of scientific journal Nature is published. * November 6 - The first game of soccer between two American colleges is played . Rutgers University defeats Princeton University, 6 to 4 in a forerunner to American Football and College Football. * November 17 - In Egypt, the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, is inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony. * November 23 - In Dumbarton, Scotland the clipper ship Cutty Sark is launched (it was one of the last clipper ships to be built, and the only one surviving to the present day). * December 10 - First American chapter of Kappa Sigma founded at the University of Virginia. * December 31 - Triple Alliance forces take Asunción Undated * Basutoland becomes British protectorate * British parliament ends transportation to Australia as punishment * Mahbub Ali Pasha begins a 42 year reign as Nizam of Hyderabad * James Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald, asks Henry Morton Stanley to go and find Dr Livingstone, despite him not being lost or in difficulty. * The Meiji Emperor of Japan accepts the surrender of the four most powerful clans (Chōshū, Tosa, Hizen and Satsuma) and reappoints the clan chiefs as Provincial Governors, on reduced revenues. * Abdur Rahman Khan is exiled from Afghanistan. * Southern Illinois University Carbondale founded. * The Co-operative Central Board (later Co-operatives UK) founded in Manchester. Births January - June * January 4 - Tommy Corcoran, baseball player (d. 1960) * January 10 - Grigori Rasputin, Russian mystic (d. 1916) * January 15 - Stanisław Wyspiański, Polish dramatist, poet, painter, and architect (d. 1907) * February 11 - Helene Kroller-Muller, Dutch museum founder and patron of the arts (d. 1939) * February 14 - Charles Wilson, Scottish physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1959) * February 26 - Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, a RussianMarxist revolutionary, Vladimir Lenin's wife. (d.1939) * March 3 **Michael von Faulhaber, German cardinal and archbishop (d. 1952) **Henry Wood, British conductor (d. 1944) * March 12 - George William Forbes, New Zealand Prime Minister and first leader of the New Zealand National Party (d. 1947) * March 14 - Algernon Blackwood, English writer (d. 1951) * March 18 - Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (d. 1940) * March 21 - Florenz Ziegfeld, theatrical producer (d. 1932) * April 2 - Hughie Jennings, baseball player (d. 1928) * April 4 - Mary Colter, American architect (d. 1958) * April 8 - Harvey Cushing, American neurosurgeon (d. 1939) * April 11 - Gustav Vigeland, Norwegian sculptor (d. 1943) * April 27 - May Moss, Activist (d. July 18, 1948) * May 5 - Hans Pfitzner, German composer (d. 1949) * May 20 - John Stone Stone, American physicist and inventor (d. 1943) * * June 17 - Flora Finch, English-born comedienne (d. 1940) *June 27 - Hans Spemann, German embryologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1941) * August 10 - Lawrence Binyon, English poet and scholar (d. 1943) * September 3 - Fritz Pregl, Austrian chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1930) *September 17 - Christian Lous Lange, Norwegian pacifist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (d. 1938) * September 23 - Mary Mallon, "Typhoid Mary" (d. 1938) * October 2 - Mahatma Gandhi, Indian political leader, Father of the Nation (d. 1948) * October 25 - John Heisman, American football coach (d. 1936) * November 10 - Wayne Wheeler, American temperance movement leader (d. 1927) * November 11 - Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, King (d. 1947) * November 20 - Herbert Tudor Buckland, seminal British Arts and crafts architect (d.1951) * November 22 - André Gide, French writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1951) * November 25 - Herbert Greenfield, Premier of Alberta, Canada (d. 1949) * November 30 - Gustaf Dalén, Swedish physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1937) * December 16 - Hristo Tatarchev, Bulgarian revolutionary, leader of the revolutionary movement in Macedonia and Eastern Thrace * December 22 - Edwin Arlington Robinson, American poet (d. 1935) * December 30 - Stephen Leacock, British-Canadian author and economist (d. 1944) * December 31 - Henri Matisse, French painter (d. 1954) : See also 1869 births. Deaths January - June *January 1 **Martin W. Bates, U.S. Senator from Delaware (b. 1786) **James B. Longacre, fourth Chief Engraver of the U.S. Mint (b. 1794) *January 30 - William Carleton, Irish novelist (b. 1794) *February 15 - Mirza Ghalib, Indian poet (b. 1796). *March 8 - Hector Berlioz, French composer (b. 1803) *March 20 - John Pascoe Grenfell, British admiral of the Brazilian Navy (b. 1800) *March 24 - Antoine-Henri Jomini, French general (b. 1779) *April 20 - Carl Loewe, German composer (b. 1796) *June 16 - Charles Sturt, Australian explorer (b. 1795) *June 20 - Hijikata Toshizou, Japanese military commander (b. 1835) *August 31 - Mary Ward, first car accident victim *September 12 - Peter Roget, British lexicographer (b. 1779) *October 13 - Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, French literary critic (b. 1804) *October 23 - Edward Smith-Stanley, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1799) *December 18 - Louis Moreau Gottschalk, American composer and pianist (b. 1829)